The non-judicial settlement was approved this week by the state attorney general's office and filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The documents don't offer a dollar figure for the remainder of the trust, and the Jewish Federation said it doesn't disclose information about individual donor-advised funds. Attorneys for the Crown family did not return phone calls.

Court documents show that the trust was formed to pay its beneficiaries interest until 2016, when the remainder of the trust would be given to the Jewish Federation, an organization long supported by billionaire financier Lester Crown and his wife, Renee Crown.

The trust was established in 2007 for the Crowns' seven children and their nieces and nephews (the children of his late brothers, Bob and John) and the children of Charles “Corky” Goodman, whose late wife, Suzanne, was Mr. Crown's cousin. Mr. Goodman is vice chairman of Henry Crown & Co., the private-investment group that manages investments in banking, transportation, oil and gas, cellphones, home furnishings and resort properties.

In all there are 17 adult beneficiaries of the trust who had to agree to turn the trust over to the charity.

The trust has been overseen by Steven Crown and James Crown, Lester Crown's sons, and William Crown, the son of Lester Crown's youngest brother, the late John Crown, a former Circuit Court judge.

The filings indicate the Crowns might have been concerned that given the economic times, there wouldn't be enough money left in the trust to benefit the charity by the time it was to be turned over in 2016.

The grantor and trustees “are concerned that future income and appreciation on assets of CCI Trust may decline due to restrictions on investments applicable to trustees and because of the uncertainty of market conditions,” the court filings say. “Due to the large payments required to be made to the term beneficiaries, if investment returns falter, the charitable remainder beneficiary would be disproportionately disadvantaged.”

Terminating the trust allows the Jewish Foundation “to either use those funds to meet its charitable goals currently or to invest them on its own behalf,” the filings state.

The transfer of the trust comes on the heels of numerous donations by the Crown family to organizations across the country.

They have donated to teaching programs at Northwestern University and to the capital campaign at the Illinois Institute of Technology. A $10 million donation from the Crowns helped fund the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Rogers Park. Last year, the Crowns made a sizeable — also secret — donation to Brandeis University, which has received millions of dollars of support from the Crowns over the years.